Art or Decoration?
“Roadside Elephant”
Years ago, my family and I spent a year in a poor and remote township in South Africa. In various places along the roads, especially near game parks and tourist sites, people spread hand-crafted carvings and figurines on blankets to sell. Often we’d stop and purchase something. The craftsmanship varied from rudimentary to excellent and quite beautiful. One piece still sits on a bookshelf in my office. It has a primitive, childlike quality that is both intriguing and charming. Is it art or merely a decoration?
Horse and Buggy Days by Paul Detlefsen
As a child, I would often gaze at the picture above our couch, marveling at it’s detail and mesmerized by the serene and nostalgic scene. The framed print was titled Horse and Buggy Days, by Paul Detlefsen, a commercial artist noted as a backdrop painter in the movie industry and for his series of prints and calendars. Was it art or decoration?
Above my mother-in-law’s couch hung a rather nice landscape done in shades of turquoise and muted blues. She commissioned the painting to match her color scheme, as an accent to the room’s décor. Did her use of the painting as decoration alter the painting’s value as art?
The distinction between fine art and commercial art or between an artisan or hobbyist often has little to do with technical mastery of the medium and more to do with creativity and imagination, with emotional impact and subject matter that resonates with the viewer—qualities that may outweigh technique and elevate our valuation of a work. What one person labels fine art; another person might dismiss as a decorative piece. Indeed, some people become rather snobbish about labels and artistic value.
Artistic taste, however, will always be somewhat idiosyncratic. I recognize and acknowledge that not all that is done in the name of art is great or even good, but what speaks to me, what I find beautiful and meaningful, sometimes transcends labels.
Is my “Roadside Elephant” art or decoration? The distinction matters little to me—it has been on my bookshelf for nearly thirty years because I enjoy seeing it.
Peace . . .
